Seriously, these guys are straight up tankies with nothing worthwhile to contribute. Can we defederate them and isolate their BS?
I mean, I am not fond of the head admins running Lemmy.ml, but you should just do what I do and block the instance. Don’t know what you use to browse Lemmy but I use Connect for Lemmy on Android and it supports instance blocking.
No reason to prevent other people on your instance from interacting with instances they want to. Not everyones ideologies have to match your own, and different people want to see different content.
I mean, I am not fond of the head admins running Lemmy.ml, but you should just do what I do and block the instance.
I always say this and I’m going to keep saying it until people get the memo, instance blocking doesn’t work the way people think it does, it only blocks out communties from appearing in feeds, it doesn’t do anything for spam and bad faith actors:
Users can now block instances. Similar to community blocks, it means that any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden. However the block doesn’t affect users from the blocked instance, their posts and comments can still be seen normally in other communities.
For that reason it should not and cannot be used as an alternative to defederation.
Instance blocking in Connect for Lemmy also hides all comments from all people in the blocked instance. It doesn’t make them disappear like blocking a user does, but the comment appears with the body text replaced by a button that allows you to optionally unhide the message (like how Discord used to hide messages from blocked users).
Defederation should literally be a last resort option IMO. Otherwise you end up like Beehaw: isolated on an island away from like 90% of the Fediverse. Great for moderation but terrible for discoverability and growth.
Lemmy is pretty much the Linux version of Reddit, and as someone who has used Linux before, it is up to the end user to do all the legwork with Linux as opposed to something like Windows which is pretty much plug and play. Lemmy does best when it gives as many options to its users as possible, including preferring local user instance blocking as compared to defederating.
As an example, I like anime. Let’s say hypothetically that you don’t like anime and that I have an account on your instance. And let’s say you hate anime, actually. You want your instance to defederate from ani.social (and any other instance that hosts anime content) because you hate anime, but I don’t because I like the memes and discussions from there. How do you resolve this? Now think about what happens with an instance that hosts content that is of a different political ideology than you. Its really the same problem. By calling for defederation you effectively say that your opinions and viewpoints are the only correct ones, and that everyone else on your instance of choice needs to align to your viewpoint. In this case, this is why it would be better for you, the user with the problem with those instances, to locally block that content.
I can understand if a particular instance is so full of spam bots or people that attack the instance with illegal post content, such as posting CSAM anywhere and everywhere, but in those cases it would be up to the instance admins, and a responsible admin will make a post explaining whats going on and in some cases even ask for the community to give input on it.
Instance blocking in Connect for Lemmy also hides all comments from all people in the blocked instance. It doesn’t make them disappear like blocking a user does, but the comment appears with the body text replaced by a button that allows you to optionally unhide the message (like how Discord used to hide messages from blocked users).
I never used that app but I can tell that it absolutely is not how blocking in the Lemmy back-end works, I’m not even sure if it adds insance blocks to the user’s account when using the feature or if it just keeps them client-side, since that feature existed long before Lemmy itself had the option. Regardless many people don’t use connect, especially desktop users (connect is a mobile app) so for them it won’t work the same way.
Defederation should literally be a last resort option IMO. Otherwise you end up like Beehaw: isolated on an island away from like 90% of the Fediverse. Great for moderation but terrible for discoverability and growth.
I would agree but it’s important to realize where that line is, and to make sure it’s reasonable. Defederating Lemmy.world because of their bad users isn’t reasonable (just ban those specific people) defederating hexbear is, because their instance is entirely dedicated to spam and trolling, it’s a matter of community health, it’s not just because they’re annoying or we don’t wike them.
As an example, I like anime. Let’s say hypothetically that you don’t like anime and that I have an account on your instance. And let’s say you hate anime, actually. You want your instance to defederate from ani.social (and any other instance that hosts anime content) because you hate anime, but I don’t because I like the memes and discussions from there. How do you resolve this? Now think about what happens with an instance that hosts content that is of a different political ideology than you. Its really the same problem.
I don’t think this is really a good comparison, you’re framing it like every call for defederation was founded on personal opinion as opposed to said instance’s impact on community health i.e. Hexbear’s tendency to spam and harass people, or ExplodingHeads and their tendency to attack users of minorities (particularly gender diverse folks). Lots of people will feel these bans infringe on their freedom, yet these are for the good of the community. It’s important to remember that most lemmy instances (the ones still in the main network) are not and have not been free speech havens. When these types of guidelines aren’t enforced you get communties very similar to 4chan and gab, where the loudest ones rule and push out everyone else, it’s the Nazi bar problem. This isn’t really comparable to admins blocking instances out of personal preference, which is in a sense a form of malpractice, this is a form of moderation meant to keep spaces sane and normal, otherwise people won’t want to be their and it’ll become a Nazi bar (or Tankie bar in the case of Hexbear).
Lemmy does best when it gives as many options to its users as possible, including preferring local user instance blocking as compared to defederating.
I think you’re thinking of Nostr, Lemmy is very much a power to the site/administration type platform. They’re the ones that have the final say, they can literally ban your account from the entire network and prevent you from even logging in (on your Homeserver). The big difference between Lemmy and mainstream centralized sites is that there’s more than one of them, so if you do get nuked on one you can go elsewhere, or even start your own. Same thing when it comes to instance defederation. The user options are the servers they can choose to home themselves on, not being exempt from moderation requirements or overriding admin’s decisions. If a person doesn’t like that aspect of mainstream media, they’re going to hate Lemmy just as much. Lemmy isn’t a free speech user choice haven, it is social media free from central corporate influence (for the most part, corpos can start their own, whether instances follow them or block them is a different story).
Once instance blocking is enabled here, I fully intend to
There are several apps that do that i know jerboa does
I have Jerboa myself, and have no ability to block instances as of yet. It is not enabled in my instance.
I just want to say in case you didn’t see my other replies, that probably won’t work out as well as you think, because the way instance blocking works it only blocks the communities. User content still comes through.
From Join-Lemmy:
Users can now block instances. Similar to community blocks, it means that any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden. However the block doesn’t affect users from the blocked instance, their posts and comments can still be seen normally in other communities.
So regardless of the uninformed people suggesting this, it isn’t a solution to this issue, especially the hexbear spam problem, it’s not an alternative to defederation, and it never was, fact is Lemmy isn’t a free speech platform, people and instances can and will be banned and moderated, people who don’t like it just need to either deal with it or go elsewhere.
So you go to their instance, call them Russian shills in so many words, moderators delete your comments and your reaction is “UGH TANKIES ALL LEFTISTS ARE TANKIES”
Bro go touch grass, too much internet for you
I didn’t go to their instance, they showed up on my instance, because we’re federated with them and their bullshit appears on All.
I called a couple of them Russian shills because they are Russian shills, as aptly demonstrated by their unhinged views.
I’m a leftist myself, leftists aren’t tankies. The guys over at hexbear and lemmy.ml sure are though.
And yet you interacted with them rudely and got mad when they showed you the door for your rudeness
Big lib energy
I called out assholes spreading Russian propaganda, those people don’t deserve politeness. They’re shilling for a tyrannical regime on a war of conquest against an innocent nation, fuck the lot of them.
Case and point lol
Like how servers started defederating dbzer0 for having piracy communities? Sounds great for the fediverse. What’s stopping you from just blocking the instances?
I only know of one server who defederated dbzer0, so it doesn’t seem like a major thing. Maybe some are hiding the Piracy communities (that happened with Lemmy.world a while back) but most seem to still be federating with dbzer0.
I moved from .world because they defederated dbzer0. They’ve since refederated though.
Are you sure that they defederated, because from what I saw they just blocked some of the communities, it certainly was looking like it would end up going that route though, plus they were banning people from the instance in the thread who were speaking out or making points, it certainly was a feud between the two instances, but it didn’t seem like they defederated (though I do remember some very angry anti-piracy trolls calling for it).
You might be right. I think I moved after reading this post from the lemmy.world team. Specifically the part:
As the Lemmyverse grows and instances get big, precautions may happen. We will keep monitoring the situation closely, and if in the future we deem it safe, we would gladly reallow these communities.
The fediverse being in a state of fairly continuous growth, ‘as it gets big’ can refer to any arbitrary point in time over the past couple of years or moving forward. The statement is essentially, we will arbitrate the content on the instance for reasons. That’s fine, but not something I personally want out of my instance, so I left. sh.itjust.works was the other instance I considered moving to at the time, and I’d be against the team there defederating politicised instances in the same way. If I were a user there, I’d leave.
It wouldn’t really affect me anyway in this case, I got permabanned from lemmygrad.ml (which seems to share banlists with hexbear) for reason “liberal” after pointing out suggestions Trudeau literally voiced support for nazis were being deliberately facetious.
Near as I can tell, sh.itjust.works doesn’t have an option for blocking instances, otherwise I would. In any event, tankie bullshit should be defederated and people in normal instances shouldn’t be subjected to that.
Looks like the upgrade is planned for this week, so it might be easier to wait a few days
Once I have the ability, I fully intend to. It doesn’t change the point that they’re extremists and their bullshit shouldn’t be associated with decent instances. Sh.itjust.works should still defederate them.
stop generalising please. There’s a lot of decent people on ml. Just because you’re butthurt about a single Russian shill doesn’t mean the entire instance is full of them.
Those people are welcome to leave that instance and come to a decent one and I won’t have a problem with them. The instance itself is infested with them though.
Not really
Sounds like an awful lot of projection ngl
It’s not projection, it’s personal experience.
Defederation should be a big decision, and instances shouldn’t do so on a whim. If people want it, it can be done after some discussion
It should be discouraged unless the other instance is actively breaking the rules. When instances are super fragmented, it’s a much worse experience for everyone and it gets confusing for new people. So it should be limited to when enough people agree it’s necessary
The fact that these instances are full of tankies and Russian apologists isn’t a whim, it’s valid reason for defederating. Their bullshit doesn’t belong here.
Then make the case in The Agora. I am opposed to defederation, but maybe I’m in the minority.
Thanks, I was unaware of that community’s existence, I thought this was the main one for instance related posts.
tbh blocking dbzero is kinda understandable because of legal reasons related to hosting the instance
lemmy ml is fine though
Not in my experience, it seems to be a haven for tankies and Russia apologists.
You’re thinking of .grad
.ml is just run by assholes, but it isn’t exclusively populated by tankies. The user base is pretty hard left leaning, but so is lemmy as a whole, just with a bit less of the extra hard left.
Besides, they don’t cause trouble as an instance. You defederate from that one, and the same people will use other accounts if they’re actively proselytizing their politics. And I promise you, the ones that are doing that have multiple accounts on multiple instances just for that reason.
What I want to know is, why is either instance using “.ml”? That’s US military and entities connected with Mali, and I highly doubt they’re based out of Mali. I wonder if this means we can just wait and the government will shut them down for us! Or maybe they’re just letting them be so they can monitor them more easily.
it was free on freenom
I heard that they chose “.ml” because it could also stand for Marxist-Leninist.
What a bunch of edgelords.
I highly doubt most .io domains are hosted in the British Indian Ocean Territory either.
maybe it is if you’re just looking at the political communities (news, politics, etc) but the other communities are fine
News and politics are a huge part of the conversation though, and lemmy.ml is infested.
yeah, but why defederate when most of the instance is fine? It just removes everyone’s ability to participate in those communities on ml
We should defederate because they’re full of tankies and Russian mouthpieces, and that people of this instance shouldn’t be subjected to that kind of bullshit.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]you really think so?
Yes, I really think so. That’s why I said so.
I take it you’ve never interacted with the head admins there? I had the displeasure once and they aren’t really open to conversation. Once they have decided on something, then they won’t actually accept any sort of discussion, you’ll just be talking to a brick wall.
You can always block those instances for yourself in your settings
Edit: Sorry, sounds like your instance doesn’t have that yet but is getting an upgrade soon that will enable that feature
Heads up, instance blocking doesn’t do what you think it does. I just want to make this clear because a lot of people suggest it without having read the announcement on the join-lemmy page or the dev comments on github and get a less than accurate idea of what it does. From Join-Lemmy:
Users can now block instances. Similar to community blocks, it means that any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden. However the block doesn’t affect users from the blocked instance, their posts and comments can still be seen normally in other communities.
It isn’t a souluton to the Hexbear spam problem and this is something people should remember and keep in mind when suggesting it as an alternative to defederation.
That’s a really important distinction, thanks for clarifying
Yeah, soon as I can, I fully intend to.
I haven’t seen anything from Hexbear since they defederated from us. Are they such a nuisance?
The users on .ml are fine. The proportion of mellow to overtly politically hostile is about average. Maybe a smidge higher than average. Unlike some instances, .ml is still general purpose despite its admins attempting to steer it elsewhere. In my opinion, users and illegal content are about all that should be considered when defederating. Nothing illegal and users are largely acceptable. I say this despite having been banned from .ml.
I would also defederate from an instance if they send lots of heavy ad spam (like, if spam.world has bots that post about hot offshore pharmacies in your area into sh.itjust.works communities. Let them fill their own communities with shit. Not my septic tank, not my turds) or DDOS behavior, stuff like that.
The only thing that seems to regularly get instances defederated here is child porn. Those instances don’t seem to host any.
We should have stronger standards for federation that just not hosting child porn. Obviously that should be prevented from coming in, but we can do better than just keeping the bar that low.
Why restrict what others on the instance can sub to? As long as they’re not harassing people, users who don’t want to engage can just block them. It’s a non-issue.
It’s hardly a non-issue, they’re peddling bile fed to them by the Russian state, it has no place here. Let the communities that are decent migrate somewhere else, we should be doing our part to isolate their rhetoric.
Nah, I just ignore them and move on. Sometimes I get around to blocking some if they’re annoying enough.
Lemmy.ml is a big instance, so defederation is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Where are you even coming across this? It doesn’t even hit my all feed. And I browse new on the regular.
Edit: more so asking about .ml cuz I defederated from hexbear a long time ago. Hexbear isn’t anything but trolls. They’ll morph into whatever’s going to make you mad at the time.
Comments and posts expressing sentiments like this seem to have quite a strong showing there.
What does downvoted political commentary do to anyone?
What do you mean? This is the kind of Russian propaganda we should be isolating, and its spread and acceptance on lemmy.ml should be reason enough to defederate.
Yes, that one user is quite annoying because they make things sound well researched, when they frequently aren’t. I’ve seen that user around, and I just don’t engage with them anymore.
But the rest of the instance isn’t like that. Yeah, there are some tankies and whatnot there, so I’m hesitant to sub to anything political on that instance, but most of the rest of their users are totally fine. Their users don’t typically attack other users, so you’re only really affected if you choose to engage, and you can stop at any point.
So that’s why I disagree with defederation. If a user on their instance harasses you, report it. If the admins of that instance do nothing, report it to admins here. If there’s a pattern of their admins allowing harassment, we should defederate.
But having stupid ideas isn’t grounds for defederation imo.
You need a much better reason than I don’t like this thing for defederation.
Minimizing propaganda spoonfed from the Russian aggressor state is pretty damn good reason.
They don’t host illegal (in Canada) content, so the admins haven’t pre-emptively blocked them. There hasn’t been a discussion and vote in c/agora where the users decide to block them, so that hasn’t been done either. There was discussion of it for Hexbear when they first federated with us, but they blocked us after a bit and it was dropped or something, I can’t recall exactly. If it really bothers you, make a discussion post in c/agora.
Thanks, I was unaware of that community’s existence, I thought this was the main one for instance related posts.
c/main is for instance news and general discussion, while c/agora is for discussion of instance rules and voting
edit: I should explain how the agora works. Any regular user can make a [discussion] post for proposing changes to the rules. Those are open for a week, then the mods of the community make a [vote] posts in which sh.itjust.works users can vote to accept or not accept the rule. That’s also open for a week iirc.
Much appreciated, thanks for the info!
Just fyi, if you do end up making a discussion post in the agora, you should back up claims you make (about posts that are allowed to stay up on the instances, or conversations with their mods/admins, etc) with screen shots. If I were you, I would also talk to one of the agora mods about whether you should make 1 discussion post, or 2 (1 for each instance you want to defederate from). I’m not sure how they’d want to handle it, but I’m pretty sure it would need 2 vote posts so they may want you to split it.
Probably best to have two discussions, one for each instance, as there might be two entirely different verdicts and also the problems on each instance aren’t the same.
That vote thread was not created by a mod thus unofficial, as I understand hexbear defederated SJW before anything happened.
That sounds familiar, thanks
